


A Sense of Something

by fairytaletrue



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Draco Malfoy & Pansy Parkinson Friendship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Repressed, F/M, Forgiveness, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Implied Sexual Content, Note the Dramione tag is just because they're mentioned in passing, One Shot, POV Pansy Parkinson, Post-Battle of Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:34:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27018160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairytaletrue/pseuds/fairytaletrue
Summary: George hovered over her, and pressed two kisses – light as air, onto each of her closed eyes. Pansy screwed up her face in discomfort. It was too intimate.“Don’t” she muttered, squirming out from under him. “That’s not… That’s not what this is. I know that. It’s okay.”George paused, then shifted off of her to lean casually on one side. “What do you mean, ‘that’s not what this is?’ What is it?” he asked carefully.Pansy Parkinson, the Ice Princess of Slytherin, is perfectly comfortable with being pounded into a mattress by a Gryffindor. She knows who she is, what she's done, and what people think of her as a result. To expect anything other than hate sex would be ridiculous. Wouldn't it?
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson/George Weasley
Comments: 22
Kudos: 84





	A Sense of Something

George hovered over her, and pressed two kisses – light as air, onto each of her closed eyes. Pansy screwed up her face in discomfort. It was too intimate.

“Don’t” she muttered, squirming out from under him. “That’s not… That’s not what this is. I know that. It’s okay.”

George paused, then shifted off of her to lean casually on one side. “What do you mean, ‘that’s not what this is?’ What is it?” he asked carefully.

She shot him a look, but he seemed perfectly content to just sit there and listen to her as if he didn’t have a very prominent erection straining against his trousers. Pansy huffed in exasperation and sat up against the headboard, crossing her arms over her chest. Her body felt like it was humming, vibrating, or was it shivering? It didn’t matter, her mind ached with need. Probably withdrawals. Definitely withdrawals and not the alternative. Nicotine cravings were a curse after all.

“You think you’re the first Gryffindor to want to hop into bed with Slytherin’s ice princess?” she queried, raising one eyebrow and snatching a cigarette from the packet beside her bed. George murmured a quick _incendio_ and the tip flared with a brief unfurling of orange light. She grated at the display of wandless magic. Fucking George and his fucking brilliance.

He remained remarkably calm in the face of her irritation. “For Merlin’s sake Pansy, we’ve been out of Hogwarts for years. I’ve never understood everyone’s obsession with the House system defining us for the rest of our lives.”

She sucked in and gave herself the length of her exhale to master the swirling indignation. Of course he was happy to dismiss the way everyone still used the houses to define each other. He’d never suffered for it. “Don’t change the subject” she snapped. “I’ve done this before, I know what you want out of it.”

He opened his mouth as if to protest, but she cut him off. “There’s no need to feel guilty, I’ll not be leaving unsatisfied, but let’s not pretend you want to make love to me. It’s an insult to both of us.”

“Where are you getting this rubbish from?” he asked, his voice laced with a sort of low-level amusement which only served to feed her rising infuriation. He reached to trace circles on her arm and she quickly snatched it away.

“Seamus Finnegan, Cormac McLaggen and Jack Sloper spring to mind as immediate examples of ‘where I got this rubbish from’, but we’re not litigating my sexual history—”

“We’re not litigating _anything_ Pansy—”

She tapped ash into the small jade tray then glared at him. “Let’s be clear: you’re George Weasley and I’m Pansy Parkinson. You’re a tragic war hero and I’m the bitch who suggested giving Potter to Voldemort.”

He rolled his eyes, and a slight twinge of annoyance seeped into his tone as he replied, “I’m aware of who we both are Pansy. I appreciate the reminder though. It would have been terribly awkward for me if I’d forgotten mid-thrust.”

Pansy sneered in faux-amusement before taking another drag and continuing. “It’s very simple Weasley—”

“Don’t call me Weasley. I worked very hard to ensure you were sighing ‘George’ a few moments ago and it seems an awful waste of my talents to revert back.”

Her lips twitched into a smile despite herself. “Fine, _George,_ the facts remain. You’re attracted to me, which isn’t your fault I’m a very pretty girl.”

“I agree.”

“But if I _wasn’t_ pretty, you’d want nothing to do with me. Nobody’s banging down Millicent Bulstrode’s bedroom door these days, I assure you. But I am, so you’re angry at yourself for wanting to screw the enemy.”

George grinned. “See, you’ve just proven you don’t know me at all. I actually find Millicent quite dashing…”

Pansy snorted derisively, but carried on. “You figure a quick hate fuck where you pound me into the mattress will get it out of your system, and then you can be on your merry way. Which is fine. I’m not going to object to an orgasm just because it comes from someone who dislikes me. Some of the best sex in my life was with people who hate me. Finnegan, for example, proved to be quite articulate in certain contexts, and there’s something to be said for the Irish accent…”

“And while I’m very happy to hear Seamus has managed to become good at something that isn’t blowing things up, I fail to see the relevance.”

Pansy closed her eyes and rested her head against the headboard. “George. I… Listen.”

“I’m listening.”

Horror swirled through her as she realised she was beginning to cry, and she fought to keep her voice from wavering as she explained. “Try to see things from my perspective. I’m… _me,_ and you’re… well, you. There’s no reason you’d ever want to be, I don’t know, _gentle._ So let’s just be honest with each other. The only reason you could possibly have for being sweet and generous is so you can go back to your mates at the Leaky and tell them how Pansy Parkinson was stupid enough to think you actually liked her.” She paused, and her hand shook as she raised the cigarette to her mouth once more. She desperately waited for the soothing calm to embrace her.

It didn’t.

She blew out, and after a moment said in a tiny, vulnerable voice: “I’m not one of your jokes, George.”

Silence filled the room. Smoke floated above the bed. Pansy stubbed out the cigarette and wiped her traitorous tears away. Why wasn’t he _saying anything?_ Why did he just sit there and let her ramble? Why, for Salazar’s sake, did he not just accept the offer of hot, angry sex and _leave?_ She finally dragged her eyes away from the ceiling to look down at him. He was frowning up at her, eyes hard. Circe, now he was angry. Perhaps it was better that way.

“Listen I think you’d better leave. This was obviously a mistake.”

George’s frown deepened, and he sat up in the bed, looking her dead in the eye. Panic flared within her and she realised she didn’t actually want him to leave, that his look did something to her.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell Hermione what happened here,” she began, and then let out a breathy, panicked laugh “and I’d honestly rather battle a horntail that tell Draco so you don’t have to worry about any sort of, I don’t know, reprisals or—”

“Pansy please be quiet. I think it’s my turn to talk.” George said, his voice low and strong. Her tears returned almost immediately in response.

He took in a breath and the exhale hissed out, thick with frustration. “I don’t know about fucking Finnegan, or McLaggen, or that utter incompetent Sloper, but it appears to be news to you that not all Gryffindors hate all Slytherins. Which surprises me, considering your best mate is in a committed relationship with Hermione Granger of all people. Hermione Granger, who incidentally, you are also friends with.”

She frowned, this wasn’t about that it was… “I just meant—”

“Still my turn darling. You were on the wrong side of the war Pansy, we both know that. But remind me, how old were you?”

Pansy swallowed thickly. “Seventeen.”

“Right. Do you think seventeen year olds are good at making decisions? Particularly big, good versus evil ones?”

Pansy sighed. “Harry Potter made the right decision when he was eleven, and every year after” she pointed out.

George snorted, his hand flicking to the side in dismissal. “Harry had Dumbledore, Hagrid, Ron, Hermione, me, Fred, Sirius, Remus… Dozens of others guiding him, telling him what to choose. Who did you have Pansy? Your family of Death Eaters? Snape?” He looked at her, eyes blazing. Her tears were flowing freely now.

She sniffed. “I…”

George rose up and shifted to sit in front of her. He took her face in his hands, and wiped away a tear with his thumb. His eyes, crackling with fire only moments prior were now soft and gentle. “Pansy you were a child” he murmured. “You were raised to believe in something disgusting, but that isn’t your fault.”

She sobbed. “I didn’t want him to die” she confessed, her voice high and weak “I just wanted it to be over and I didn’t think a bunch of teenagers would win. I… I just…” She descended into sobs. “If I could go back…”

George pulled her into his chest and began stroking her back with slow, strong lines. “We’ve all wanted to go back Pansy” he said, his voice catching.

“I’m so sorry” she sobbed, tears bleeding into George’s shirt.

“You didn’t know any better” he assured her. “You did the best you could in an impossible situation.”

“Don’t, don’t” she moaned, shaking her head. “I don’t deserve any of that. You should hate me.”

He pulled her back to look at him, stared at her for a moment, and then bent down to kiss her. Just once. Just softly. Like the brush of a feather.

“I think you hate yourself enough for the both of us, don’t you?” he queried.

That broke something in her. She felt the impact of it, running cracks through a wall she didn’t even realise she’d built. A wall that had stood untested for seven years, suddenly obliterated. She crumbled. The force of the ensuing emotions; sorrow, regret, self-hatred, desperation, threatened to drown her. She collapsed against George’s chest, and he pulled her down onto the bed, cradling her against him. He whispered softly in her ear for the rest of the night, and as the dawn filtered through Pansy felt something else rise with the day. A sense of something. Forgiveness.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this work was born from me reading a lot of Dramione fics where Pansy always appears as either this mindless whore that Draco distracts himself with whilst secretly pining for Hermione, or as a sort of twittering, ultra femme sidekick. Those are when she's decent too. There are also a host of mean spirited and nasty Pansy's also hovering around. Whilst all characterisations serve their particular purpose, I found myself quite intrigued by the idea of Pansy. She's one of the few female Slytherins we see in canon, yet beyond the obvious mean girl tropes, she's never properly fleshed out. We don't even know if she fought in the Battle of Hogwarts. So I sort of wanted to play with her and see what my version of Pansy would be.
> 
> I'm also obsessed with supposedly 'evil' characters reconciling with their pasts. I use it a lot in my other works, and it's why I like Dramione so much. So obviously, I combined my renewed interest in Pansy with that plot device, and this is what ensued. I have very vague ideas of expanding this pairing into something a little lengthier, so do let me know if that's something you'd be interested in reading in the comments before I go ahead at do it anyway. I think George in particular is an interesting match for this version of Pansy as well, so I'll probably churn some things out. 
> 
> I'm a little torn on survivors forgiving their oppressors/abusers, which is why the forgiveness I talk about here isn't necessarily George's, but Pansy's forgiveness of herself. I do believe in redemption, and the process of achieving that is certainly something I'd like to explore. 
> 
> BLAH! Anyway, enjoy, please comment feedback if you're that way inclined. <3


End file.
